


Like A Bush Dried Tan Takes To A Spark

by Fervidflowering



Category: Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 22:23:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15156911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fervidflowering/pseuds/Fervidflowering
Summary: The window is too small for her. It is almost too small for him.





	Like A Bush Dried Tan Takes To A Spark

The window is too small for her. 

It’s almost too small for him. 

But where she is hips and shoulders and taller than him still, he is all limbs long and thin and waiting to gain muscle. Her hands grasp him as the fires licks high up their walls - walls that take to the fire like a bush dried tan takes to a spark. She’s barely pulled them both across the room toward the only window not surrounded by flames before the fire’s digging its fingers into the path they’d just tread. 

She slams the laundry door shut, hisses as she spins back to him with her hand curled into a fist. She doesn’t speak to him and John’s scared. He doesn’t know this side of his mother. Their house has never been set on fire. She’s never shown the whites of her eyes. Angry. He’s seen angry on her face. Frustrated. Happy. Sad. Never scared. His stomach threatens to eat itself with all the nerves running through there. 

Even as she stalks to the furthest wall and starts pushing at the tiny window - up there where the ceiling meets the wall - his nerves ride his limbs and keep him still. You can't fight a fire with your fists and bony elbows and knuckles.

“John, cum yah.” Her hand's waving him towards her. She's looking in his direction, but not directly at him. The flames are hot on his back. “John!”

His limbs feel too long as he flies to his mother and she grasps him by his armpits. He can barely get a word out before she starts pressing him to the window. It swings open, but he has to twist his head to the side to get it through. Has to wiggle his arms and chest and for a moment - with his mother slapping his feet and pushing at his hips, his back, his legs - he’s afraid he’s stuck in that window. And in that moment he sees himself burn here, stuck between the laundry room and the open air he’s half tumbling out into. 

He hits the ground before he realizes. And his mother is shouting, but he can’t hear yet. He scrambles and looks back up where his mother is pushing her arm out and waving it. 

“RUN!”

So he does. 

And he leaves her. 

He runs and runs and runs until he's too tired and even then he runs just a little bit further. He'd seen the Bushmaster Rum come through the window. He'd seen his mother's arm waving as orange light flickered around it. He bits his lips bloody to keep from screaming that night in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this before I got to the episode where we see John's mom die in the house. The window part was correct, but obviously the ending here isn't quite the same as the show was. Still like this though, so I'll keep it up.


End file.
